


Wants To Be My Duvet

by pipelliot



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipelliot/pseuds/pipelliot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin really, really hates being cold. But it's okay, because eventually he finds Arthur to keep him warm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wants To Be My Duvet

**Author's Note:**

> ~~nope I don't understand the terrible pacing and general lack of satisfying content either I'm just always cold and like hand holding a lot~~ Unbeta'd. Written in the very wee hours of the morning, sans my hot water bottle. Title from "Homeless" by Ed Sheeran (who also seems to be perpetually cold and who was my lovely soundtrack/best friend through the night.)  <3

Merlin really, really, hated being cold.

He hated the way he had to physically brace himself for a moment before resting the tips of his fingers against his belly. He hated how his fingers ached and stiffened whenever he used his laptop for more than ten minutes. He didn’t like how he’d just grown accustomed and unaware to the fact his toes were almost perpetually cold, despite the layers he piled on them (two pairs of socks, one ‘normal’ pair, the other sometimes loveheart-patterned and monster-fluffy, with his not lame at all dragon head slippers on top for good measure.)

He didn’t like the ugly welts that laced mostly the right side of his back. 

Except, no, laced isn’t the word-- ‘laced’ is a word you’d use for pretty things like pastel pink bows and sadness through wide-eyed browns and poison-- sprawling, maybe. Ugly, dull red and oddly naturally precise and wobbly lines sprawled up Merlin’s back, and to some measure, the soft, squidgy part of his arm, like those dark and cranky and twisting old trees that are only fun for Halloween, instead of the round and happy ones that Merlin always adored-- the ones in pictures with golden light poking through their every-colour leaves complete with a perfect golden sky backdrop.

Merlin’s always wanted one of those trees. One of those places where it’s always sunset. Where you can just sit and think about everything and nothing at all; where you find the love of your life and you don’t have to worry about the day anymore, but hey, there’s still a bit of night to look forward to. To still make everything happen and a chance yet to feel better.

Merlin might be a little clichéd like that.

Anyway, warm sunshine on his back (even through the window, if he could get it) was one of Merlin’s favourite things. But the sun didn’t particularly like Merlin or his surrounding environment and thus preferred to hide behind the clouds, providing just enough light to make everything grey and give all it’s heat elsewhere-- much to places that didn’t even want it.

So another one of Merlin’s favourite things was Direct Heat Things. 

Merlin’s mum didn’t much like Direct Heat Things.

But Merlin had long ago concluded that he was simply just much colder than anyone else, and so no one else would get it, really. Still, Hunith gave him warning looks whenever she spotted him wandering over to the fireplace, and spoke outright sternly (and obviously frustratedly, which always made Merlin feel bad) when, on his sore (his mother had long ago forbidden cushions anywhere near Merlin’s chosen lounging space) perch on the marble immediately in front of the flames, he would forget himself and lean far back enough for his hood to dip dangerously into the pit.

Merlin’s mum wanted him to sit on chairs. She also scowled when Merlin first showed her the weak, wobbly, ancient-people-looking lines that stubbornly clung to Merlin’s too-pale skin and sheepishly asked her if they were maybe-sort of-permanent. 

Merlin didn’t like the lines either. They were far too ugly, and he thought that he had enough of that. He also didn’t like the way sitting on the near-ground made his thighs cramp, and that his arse was far too bony to be sitting on stone like that for hours on end. He didn’t like how surprise sparks would fly and burn holes through Merlin’s clothes. He didn’t like when his mum was in the room so that he couldn’t lean back completely against the wood cradling the fire, which always made his neck cramp up considerably.

Still, he wouldn’t sit on chairs because he was probably an idiot, but mostly because he was always really fucking cold.

Will thought it was weird the way Merlin slept in so many layers. But then again, Will slept stark naked with his windows wide open in the winter.

He also didn’t like the way Merlin sat so close to the fireplace. He made no effort in disguising his scrunchy-faced look of disgust and possible confusion the first time he saw the welts on Merlin’s back, and very much disliked the way Merlin had almost absent-mindedly sat right on top of the gas heater in the kitchen to-- which he now realises was probably kind of insane, yes-- ‘see how long he could last.’

He kind of sort of melted his jeans a bit. Will kind of sort of yelled at him a lot, but agreed after relentless begging on Merlin’s part not to tell Merlin’s mum.

Hot water bottles were fun, too. Merlin had two. His mum gave him one with a blue-tongued dragon on it because dragons are the best, and Will gave him one a red one for Christmas with silhouettes of puppies and lovehearts dotted all over it to match Merlin’s socks. They were the best for when there were no briquettes for the fire, or when he just wanted to hang out in his room. Merlin liked to shove it under his however-many layers and wrap his arms around himself as tightly as he could, tucking his knees in as close as he could as if doing so could somehow make the scalding-but-still-not-enough heat reach them, too.

Will and his mum approved of them far more than they did the fire, so that was another point in their favour. They agreed that they were decidedly much less fire-hazardous, and liked that they didn’t leave ugly lines anywhere on Merlin’s overly pale and sensitive skin.

Merlin had liked that part, too, so he decided not to say anything when one day he looked down at his belly and frowned at the beginnings of a familiarly unpleasant pattern.

Merlin also found that hot water bottles were completely unsatisfactory unless they left red patches wherever Merlin rested them against his skin, which meant they needed to be refilled at least every two hours, and that sometimes they didn’t always stay put when you tied another hoodie crushingly tight around your belly so you could leave your arms free and still walk around with one in place. 

It also tended to make one look a little ridiculous.

But still, even though the electric blanket Will gifted him for his sixteenth birthday was easily one of Merlin’s best Direct Heat Things, he quite liked the way he could fold himself around the hot water bottle at night. Quite needed it, actually. The way it was something solid and warm to hold onto, something to focus on when his chest ached (and when it was empty) and when his eyes squeezed shut (or stung wide open and wet) for hours, for too long, before he couldn’t remember what was hot or cold anymore.

Radiators were good sometimes, too, especially at school, when Merlin got to the desks that were pressed right up against them first, and leaned his head against the metal even though it hurt and teachers tended to frown upon it. And sometimes even just looking at a candle was enough, if he had his favourite, largest hoodie on that he could snuggle into, with his red snoogie on top, which was also the best because Merlin always wore it backwards and it blew out magnificently in imaginary winds like a majestic cape as he walked pottered about the house.

No one seemed to understand that putting on another jumper just wasn’t enough. That wearing gloves didn’t make his hands any less cold. That nothing ever made his stupid, always-clammy fingers warm; not a blazing open fire, not even a hot water bottle with a blue-tongued dragon.

Until--

Until Merlin’s life actually did turn into a big cliché and he met (or at least, spoke to properly for the first time outside school) the love of his life under a tree, one of the round and happy ones, with a sunset and golden light shining through the leaves and hitting the Love of His Life’s (or, uh, Arthur’s) equally golden hair and making his eyes sparkle even more than Merlin suspected they already did.

Merlin didn’t actually particularly enjoy the burning heat that flamed what he could only assume was his entire face as far as his ears when he tripped right in front of an adorably concentrating Arthur, which only disturbed him from his concentrated reading faces (his bottom lip looked so soft the way it pouted out a bit) and made him run over instantly to very seriously check that Merlin was okay before proceeding to tease him mercilessly.

Merlin doesn’t think he liked the initial irritated heat that sparked in his chest at the prodding insults, but Merlin was pretty well able to defend himself, and so it was only mild. He thinks he liked the tickling warmth that spread through his belly when Arthur smiled at him, bright and crooked and uncontrolled, not like any Merlin had ever seen from him before.

When he asked from beneath his lashes for Merlin to join him, if he wasn’t busy, in grabbing a coffee (which really meant Lucozade, because they were, infact, sixteen year old boys), Merlin was pretty certain that he loved, if was not completely taken aback by, the sharp heat in his belly that settled into something like a thousand ablaze-but-not-actually-burning? butterflies that were frantically fluttering around in there, tickling and bouncing off his guts and all of his inside bits.

Uh...yeah. Merlin couldn’t really describe it. But he definitely... He liked it.

+++

Merlin could’ve sworn that where Arthur would absently rest his hand against the back of Merlin’s neck while chatting among the group, where he’d rest a palm a bit above Merlin’s knee in a booth, where he’d scrub his fingertips across Merlin’s temple on group movie nights when he’d pull Merlin down to lie on his lap, and later abandon his scruffy hair to play with Merlin’s fingers instead--

Merlin swears that in those places his skin must glow. It’s the only explanation for it, that heat. Even just sitting close to him, Merlin feels gloriously steady heat all over, because that’s just Arthur. His own fire that doesn’t burn, his personal solid yet perfectly soft radiator that doesn’t hurt his head to lean against.

Later, his own bloody hot water bottle that he doesn’t need to burn his chest trying to hold on to crushingly tight anymore, because now he has someone to hold _him_.

And quite possibly Merlin’s favourite thing is the way his fingers slot perfectly through Merlin’s, the first time Arthur did it making Merlin legit cry like an idiot because they were just so fucking _warm,_ and he’d never felt anything like it before-- not from his mum, certainly not from Will, not from Gwen or Gwaine or anybody.

They filled the gap between Merlin’s fingers and Merlin’s stupid pathetic chest and happily leached the cold right from them. From him. 

And when sunsets promised nights worse than days, Arthur would spend the night cupping Merlin’s hands around his mouth and blowing and breathing and kissing just to get them warm and keep them that way, because on the nights worse than days where Merlin wouldn’t let Arthur hold his hand because they were, quote, _too_ cold, Arthur would simply declare it nonsense, cradling Merlin between his knees and getting straight to work. 

Sometimes Merlin thinks he gets too warm and it’s frightening. He doesn’t trust himself to be careful around the flames, not to dip his hood into the fireplace when he’s not looking, or run on ahead and go sit on top of the bloody gas heater and only remember to hop off once it’s melted through bone and left scars even uglier than the welts on his back that were just beginning to fade. 

And sometimes, when Arthur’s not there-- when they fight or when he’s too far away for too long, Merlin thinks he’s colder than he’s ever been. Especially his hands, which clench into fists, fingers slipping against disgusting, clamming palms and shaking even though they’d never used to before. 

But that’s only sometimes. Arthur traces the ugly lines on Merlin’s back and his belly, makes an agitated face and tells Merlin, stop, they’re not ugly, and kisses them, which leads to kissing Merlin all over. And that’s another warmth, another direct heat that Merlin loves and quite possibly needs-- Arthur’s mouth. All he needs to do is kiss Merlin once, anywhere, and Merlin will become burning-hot all over. 

Hell, Arthur doesn’t even need to be anywhere near him. Arthur’s mouth certainly has other talented ways of making him...well, hot. 

It’s... yeah. It’s great. 

+++ 

Summers were always the coldest. 

Or at least, that’s how Merlin remembered them. When he only had angry Will and books and TV and too much time. Before Arthur and Gwen and Gwaine and Morgana and everyone else Arthur brought and secured into his life after Merlin literally went tumbling into his. Merlin kind of almost stopped noticing, or at least actively thinking about hot and cold as a _thing_ after long. If Arthur wasn’t there he’d grab Gwen, if Gwen wasn’t there he’d grab Gwaine-- and if there was nothing human to shamelessly cling onto then often, yeah, a baggier hoodie was enough. Especially if it was Arthur’s. Arthur had a rather impressive collection of warm looking, red coloured things, hoodies being one of them, so that definitely helped. 

Then, rather suddenly, as far as Merlin was concerned, secondary school finished. And summer was the gateway to Big Things and a Big Looming Future where everyone was going to different places to everyone else and everything was huge and terrifying and _on it’s way_ and Merlin was both excited and terrified with all kinds of other feelings and what he bloody needed more than anything else was his _stupid prat of a bloody anchor._

Inhale. Exhale. 

His anchor whose father wanted to spend a fabulously spontaneous and summer-long family holiday in bloody Sweden of all places. 

Merlin likes to think he made the most of that summer, anyway. Just, sometimes, Merlin wouldn’t be able to sleep and would find himself straining the cuff of his sleeve over his knuckles, and-- 

“Arthur?” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I’m cold,” Merlin would say, and hate himself a little bit for it. 

“Do you have my hoodie?” 

“Yeah.” 

“And a hot water bottle?” 

Merlin nodded, then remembered Arthur could not, in fact, see him through the phone. “S’not you,” he mumbled, a little embarrassed, into his sleeve. 

Merlin heard Arthur’s sigh crackle through the line and felt bad, especially when Arthur spoke and sounded tiredly concerned instead of irritated. 

“I’ll be home soon.” 

“‘Kay.” 

“Try and sleep, babe, yeah? Love you.” 

“Love you.” 

And Merlin would hang up and wrap his arm around the near-scalding bottle and breathe, fingers clenching onto the sleeves of the soft red fabric, eyes already fluttering closed. 

+++ 

Of course they had regular conversations about their days that teetered into regular conversations that almost always seemed to involve something Doctor Who related, and Arthur would say something low and rough that would still make Merlin blush, and Merlin would not settle until he knew he was making him blush right back. 

But sometimes, yeah, he reached for his phone under his pillow and quietly lifted the too-light covers, careful not take any from a lightly snuffling Gwen, and snook into the bathroom, shivering when he felt the cold from the tiles bleed through his singular pair of socks. 

Against better judgement, he sat on the mini-rug and leaned against the equally as cold bathtub, pulling his knees to his chest. 

_Cold. U awake?_

The reply was almost immediate. _For once. Aren’t you at Gwen’s?_

_Yeah. forgot to bring hoodie._

_Wish i was there. I’m a bit cold too_

_Shut up, you’re a bloody furnace_

Merlin leaned his head back against the tub, his eyelids and limbs equally heavy.

_Miss you._

Merlin smiled. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, only Gwen looking at him with a dopey kind of frown-slash-smile with Merlin’s phone (and Arthur’s message still open) in her hand before tugging him back to bed and tucking him in. Like his mum used to do, he thought dazedly, before forgetting everything again.

+++

Arthur’s university was, on a good traffic day, a ten minute bus journey from Merlin’s. 

Arthur’s shared apartment with Leon was, on a bad traffic day, a half an hour journey from Merlin’s shared apartment with Gwen and Lance. 

Apparently, that was enough to wedge them apart. There just wasn’t enough time for anything, for anyone, and Merlin was hardly awake enough at the end of the day to feel cold, let alone register anything during it. 

Yet, he always had enough energy left to toss and turn every night, hugging the new hot water bottle Gwen and Lance gave him for Christmas, one covered in ducks with pretty pink bows that amused his entire total of one drunken, ill-advised one night stand that Merlin regretted immediately the morning afterwards and which Gwen gave him very much deserved disapproving looks for over eggs (fried, because he didn’t deserve scrambled.) 

So really, almost five months later, and at least three and half weeks since they’ve even actually, physically seen each other, Merlin realises he’s crying, rather hysterically so, and, naturally, calls Arthur. 

“Hi,” Arthur says, quietly but steadily. Always steadily. Solid. _There_ and unwavering whenever Merlin's selfish and wants him to be waiting. 

“Hi,” Merlin says quietly. Just quietly. 

“Are you cold?” Arthur asks after a pause, and he sounds like he’s smiling a little, and Merlin can recognize that it isn’t condescending in the least. 

Merlin took a deep breath and wiped his eye with one tightly-clenched sleeve cuff. “A little. I’m a bit more lonely, though,” he says with a loud snuffle and a hiccup that also makes him giggle a bit, because above all else, Merlin is embarrassment personified. 

Arthur chuckles a little, too, though, and it warms Merlin’s heart. “You think I could help you with that?” he asks, the hope in his tone bringing back that glorious, spiking heat in Merlin’s belly. 

“I was kind of hoping you would.” 

“Are you at home?” 

“Yeah, I--” 

“Don’t move,” Arthur said, and Merlin could hear the sounds of him shuffling around already before he hung up. 

And it was kind of... as ridiculously simple as that. Merlin knew that logically, of course, Arthur’s fingers would still be a perfect fit through Merlin’s, but it was still nice to see that they still do. And that they likely would for as long as they wanted them to. 

Arthur's hands were also just as warm as Merlin remembered. And when Arthur would touch his fingertips to Merlin’s belly, to any and every part of him, really, Merlin’s shivers meant something else entirely. 

Something a little like home. 

__

+++ 


End file.
